Computer voice
UX podcast episode 282.

[Music]

James Royal-Lawson
I’m James Royal-Lawson.

Per Axbom
And I’m Per Axbom.

James Royal-Lawson
And this is your way to podcast bouncing Business Technology, people and society every other Friday for over a decade. And with listeners literally all over the world, from the Isle of Man to Türkiye, Türkiye. I can’t – I’m going to practice saying it. Türkiye.

Per Axbom
Is that Turkey?

James Royal-Lawson
Because they’ve changed–

Per Axbom
Oh, yeah, they changed it. Yes.

James Royal-Lawson
Well, they’ve asked to change it, which is interesting that you have to ask to change your name of your own country, but they don’t want to be associated with turkey anymore. The bird. They want to be their own country. So Türkiye.

Per Axbom
Yeah.

James Royal-Lawson
Which is actually very… much more close to what we say in Swedish. Turkiet. Yes.

Per Axbom
Yes.

James Royal-Lawson
Kalkon is turkey. So anyway, enough of the language lessons.

Per Axbom
Moving on. Carolyn Wilson-Nash is a lecturer at the University of Stirling and together with Julie Tinson, who is Professor of Marketing also at Stirling University, have published together a research paper entitled, “I am the master of my fate” – Digital technology paradoxes and the coping strategies of older consumers.

James Royal-Lawson
So technology and the elderly, so older adults is a topic that Per and I have been interested in for quite a while. Yeah, I suppose partly because we hear people, in our, branch, anywhere, using older people as a gauge of usability, “if my mom could use it that anyone can”, but also, because we actively include all actively exclude older people quite regularly from our work. Our app is, but for millennials, for example,

Per Axbom
Yeah. So Carolyn joins us to talk more about her research and the impact technology has on older people’s lives.

James Royal-Lawson
Technology and the elderly is something that, I mean, I’m going to be heavy turning 49 In a couple of weeks. And that means I’ve got parents that are a generation ahead of that. And I know from talking to my peers, that it’s an increasing burden is helping your parents not just with all the kind of other matters of ageing parents, and maybe financial aspects, health aspects and so on. But the technology aspect of it is something I don’t think I personally envisaged, envisaged, a while ago that I’d need to deal with as I got older, what is it when? Tell me? Can you share a bit more about technology and the changing things to do with it now?

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
Well, I think, I think it’s really hard, because obviously, you’ve got such a range of people within the sort of older adult group. So you’ve got ranges of people, people who have quite a lot of experience with technology, maybe people have worked with technology in the past, who are ageing, and those people absolutely fine with technology. But then obviously, you have some people who might not have experiences of using much technology before. And now it’s everywhere, it’s around us, you, you have to use things like the Internet to contact your doctor. Especially during COVID, you need to use the internet for Internet Banking. And people communicate via the internet. And if you’re not on it, you kind of almost are feeling left out. So having technology is becoming more of a necessity, and less us sort of something we really want and desire.

And there is sort of a group of people that don’t have that experience from using it at work. Those groups of people are getting older. And it is it’s it, as you said, sort of, you know, your parents getting older, you need to help them with technology. There is that sort of family element to it as well. So a lot of sort of people help their family so I help my mum, my mum has just got a new computer. And I’ve helped her install that computer. There’s, you find a lot of grand grandchildren helping their grandparents with their technology as well. But the issues are is it’s it’s not necessarily easy. I don’t think technology has really been designed for you to just sort of turn it on and start using it. And it’s really easy, and it’s laid out and you know, happy days. I think there are a lot of barriers to using technology. So for example, when I was setting up my mom’s computer, it wasn’t just sort of I turn it on I follow the instructions. I set it up, she needed a Microsoft account A Google account, and all these passwords and security and I was like, I just want her to turn it on because she’s not going to remember a password. And also, I set it up in my Microsoft account. So every time she logs on it goes, hello, Carolyn. And she gets very confused.

So there’s just all these barriers, and I think we’ve gone almost too far on the security side. There’s too much security. Why do you need 101 passwords to log in something? Why do you need 101 accounts, to be able to use a device, surely, you should have the device and then you should be able to choose what accounts you want to link it with. And I think all of that all of those barriers, and all of those difficulties make it really difficult for someone to start using technology. And that’s the issue is, you know, sometimes you need to start using these devices, whether it’s a computer or a mobile phone, or an iPad, or tablet, or Kindle, whatever. But there are these sort of barriers as to start using that technology. And if you don’t have someone to help you, so if you don’t have a loving daughter or son or grandchild to help you get connected to help use that technology, it can be quite isolating, it can be extremely daunting. So that’s kind of the issues with it. I would say.

James Royal-Lawson
I think the whole thing. Well, the aspect you brought up the beginning of that, about the fact that – I mean, I said elderly, and you pointed out that not all elderly are elderly, or rather, there’s not one big clump, young, I mean, younger elderly people you mentioned about people who were working. I don’t know if I’d reflect about this so much that I mean, I’m I said I did say that was almost 50. But looking back to when we started the podcast 10 years ago, I mean that – people are like just a bit older than me and Per are now elderly effectively, because they’re over 65. So what kind of spans are we? I mean, it must vary a huge amount between those people who have work experience with computers and technology and don’t?

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
Well, it’s a really contentious term. So like using a term, so the moment someone turns 65, you turn around and say, Oh, now you’re elderly. I don’t think they’d like that very much. So is quite a contentious term I use, like older adults, and generally refer to people sort of over 65 as an older adult. But again, that that’s contentious. I mean, why do we use 65 as the cutoff, why is 65 their time and age cutoff? It’s really difficult to know. So I think the best thing to do is not not to sort of say that, you know, everyone over the age of 65 is the same, they’re not not all the same people or the same group. There’s different people, different experiences, and different experiences of using technology as well. So the group, probably between sort of 65 and early 70s.

Now, majority of that group will have worked with technology, and probably have quite a good experience of technology. And it might be you know, things change, and they need to update their skills, or they might need to ask a few people for help or certain things as we all do. I mean, I work in an institution, and we’ve all been asking each other how to download Office 365. You know, and you have that sort of collaboration with each other. But then there is sort of, I’d say, a generation above that, that maybe didn’t work with technology at work, or maybe didn’t have as much experience of it, and sort of the younger, older generation. And I think it can be really, really difficult, because essentially, you’re trying to learn a new skill that you’ve never learned before. And you might be doing that with not very much help. And you might be learning that skill. But imagine the goalposts keep moving, because things keep changing. And technology becomes more difficult, and there’s more than barriers put up. And I think like a lot of the issue is that these technologies that are out there are traditionally designed or thought of as being used by the younger consumer. So they’re designed with the younger consumer in mind, they’re probably tested on the younger consumer..

Per Axbom
and also built by younger people.

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
..exactly built by younger people for younger people.

James Royal-Lawson
And the perception as well Per. I think about the your what you consider to be old when you’re younger. isn’t as old as 65

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
No, I know I remember being at school. I’m thinking that my teachers are probably in their mid 20s were really old.

Per Axbom
Yep.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
But I think that’s also respect for people who are older than You as well. Yeah, younger generation designing for a younger generation without testing on sort of the older generations. And I think it’s all about bringing the older adult voice into, you know, into what they want from a technology. How can we design a technology so that there aren’t these barriers? How can we design a technology, so it’s useful and fun, I think we always forget the fun side of technology. It’s playful, it’s enjoyable. Older adults use technology for its enjoyment, as well as for its function and utility. And actually, what you find is a lot of the technologies that are designed for older adults tend, they tend to be designed for like specific purposes, like care needs. And so that sucks the fun out of the technology, because it all becomes about sort of the utility and the function. But really, we need to remember that it can be fun and playful, as well. So yeah, it’s about getting that voice into the technology development process, getting sort of the voice of the older consumer in there.

Per Axbom
It’s so interesting, because that sounds to me, like a huge missed opportunity, with populations in a large number of countries just getting older and older. So that demographic is actually increasing in size, which means that if you are thinking of, in a commercial sense, there’s a huge opportunity to actually build more fun stuff for that target group.

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
Yeah, absolutely. There’s, like a massive consumer group there. And as you say, we are sort of in ageing populations. And I mean, there’s a lot there that is probably in a needed by someone. But also, there might be a lot there that we don’t we don’t know about because it’s a completely understudied group and untapped into market as well. So doing sort of more research into what older people want from a technology, how they use their current technology, how could we make it more usable, easier to use less of these sort of security barriers? I mean, security is important. People do like that. But I think it’s gone too far the other way.

James Royal-Lawson
In your research paper. Carolyn, you, you touched on I believe one of the main findings of it was the paradox of the technological, technological paradoxes. And this was interesting. I mean, you’ve you’ve, you’ve touched on one, which wasn’t actually I think, one of the paradoxes just now with the fun and utility. But But you did have I think it was five or six paradoxes. Do you want to share a little bit about those paradoxes and explain what they

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
are? Yeah, yeah. So paradox, it all comes from sort of making Fornia on paper back in 1998. And they found them paradoxes of technology, which is basically when when you’re using a technology, there are these sort of conflicting emotions. So whilst you might feel in control of that technology, it can also cause huge amounts of chaos. That would be one example of a paradox. So an example from the paper that Julie and I write is that I use that control chaos one. But so sort of an older person feeling in control of their mobile phone, they know how to use it, and how to use the functions. But then, at the same time, that phone started randomly syncing with all the other devices. So loads of files moved from the phone to the pad to the computer, and there was absolute chaos. And they said, I think there was a quote there that their pocket was bulging with spam. And I loved that it was such a nice quote. But these things, sometimes they just happen, and you don’t know why. And I think technology has a way of creating these feelings of control, but also that absolute chaos, when it comes maybe something goes wrong, or maybe something happens that you’re not tight, totally in control of. and a paradoxes, obviously when that happens simultaneously, and these things happen at the same time, and create sort of like a conflict in yourself, which can sort of maybe create feelings of self doubt a little bit more maybe sort of anxiety or stress.

So I mean, that quite a few paradoxes that we identified. Other ones are efficiency and inefficiency. So whilst you might find your device really efficient, with sort of, I looked at four different devices, so it was mobile phones or smartphones, even, tablets, laptops and e-readers at the time. So whilst you e-reader might be really useful for reading books. And it’s very efficient, because you can download a book and read it. It might also be inefficient for other tasks, for example, like checking emails. So that’s an example of where something might be efficient and inefficient at the same time. And then another one is assimilation and isolation. So assimilation is obviously that feeling of sort of being together with someone. And technology creates that like technology is where you can communicate with someone, or technologies where you’ve got the same technology, it can create sort of a group of people bonding together. So a great sort of quote in the paper is that there was this woman and she was part of a book group. And within the book group, they almost had their psion of people who are Kindle users, and people who weren’t Kindle users. So by being a Kindle user, they had their group of people, and they bonded over using their Kindle. And you have this with, like Apple users and Microsoft users, like you have groups of technology users and they bond together.

James Royal-Lawson
That’s so interesting!

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
It is really interesting.

James Royal-Lawson
They are bonding, because like in a book group, you expect to bond over the book you’re reading,

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
yes.

James Royal-Lawson
As that’s the object. Whereas what you’re saying there is that the Kindle itself became the object – it is the object, it’s not useful book anymore. For that group, it’s the the device. It’s fascinating

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
is really interesting. So not only can devices create a simulation by sort of being a form of communication, but also bonding over sort of like minded people using the same device. So that was sort of the assimilation side. And then the isolation side was actually quite interesting, because you wouldn’t expect that from someone who uses technology. But it’s very much like, it’s a double edged sword in that you. If you’re part of that Kindle group, you’re obviously isolating yourself from other people. So you can become so involved in your technology, that you’re actually isolating yourself from the outside world. And so I think, like another study that I did actually found that the more emotionally connected someone was to their technology, the less they felt a sense of belonging within the world. And which I think is quite interesting. So I think there’s a balance there, I think you need technology to feel part of this sort of digital world that we’re creating. But there’s also if you get too immersed in technology, and you see this with teenagers and video games, then you’re not outside, you’re not talking to people, you’re not communicating with people, you’ve not got that face to face contact, you’re essentially in an eternal COVID-19, which nobody wants. And so that’s how that creates that sort of feeling of isolation as well.

And then another paradox is this sort of freedom, enslavement paradox. So freedom is that technology gives you a lot of freedom, and a lot of sort of autonomy. So an older person might use it to, you know, arrange to meet up with friends, they might use it to do their online shopping, they might use it to do things that they otherwise might not be able to do, which creates that that sort of freedom from it, because there’s so many different functions and uses from technology, which is excellent. But there’s also this enslavement side, where technology, you’re dependent on things. So you’re dependent on the latest software update, or you’re dependent on battery power. You know, it’s as simple as that. And there’s a story in in the paper about two older ladies whose car broke down, and they had been given these smartphones, probably by their children to use in an emergency, but neither the smartphone has had battery power. So they couldn’t use them. And so you are still enslaved by this technology, or by sort of some of the requirements of the technology.

James Royal-Lawson
When in that situation. I example, I guess you’ve you’ve created a false reassurance, because they probably I guess, felt at ease because they had these emergency devices. And then when it came to the actual emergency, the reassurance became stressful, I guess, because you couldn’t use it.

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
Exactly. And I mean, it happened to me the other day, I was on a train and you now get sort of E-ticket, E-train tickets on your phone. And I had 2% battery left and I was like oh, what do I do? So I put my phone on to flight mode, I said this might get me through the station. The the ticket person comes through on the train, I was like, Look, I can show you, but please Can you print me off a ticket because my phone is gonna die by the time I get to the station and I need to get through the barriers. And she was like no Sorry, I can’t do that.

Per Axbom
Oh, so you need it when you get out as well, which means that you will be instantly trapped inside. Oh, wow.

James Royal-Lawson
Or ticketless, you’re effectively ticketless.

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
Yeah, I mean, I was freaking out that, you know, we have now all this dependency on on technology in our everyday lives. But you know, we’re still enslaved by having battery. And I’m gonna carry a charger with me everywhere I go now. And so yeah, that was that was another one. And then the fifth paradox is competence and incompetence. So when you use technology and when you use it right, you get this great feeling like this great sort of sense of achievement. And and you could see sort of, it was a diary study that we did, so a six month long diary study of people using their specific technologies. And you could see, when people had worked out technical difficulties, sort of the great feelings that they had, they were like, it worked. And you know, exclamations like that, I feel great. But then on the other side of it, you know, when it doesn’t work, it creates these feelings of incompetence. And that was coming out quite a lot.

From the data was people sort of almost blaming themselves if they couldn’t use technology. And so there were frustrations, there were people saying, you know, is it me? Is it me doing something wrong? And this, one participant was saying, you know, I was a CEO. And now I can’t even get this iPhone to work. And, you know, people were almost sort of doubting themselves and their identity, because they couldn’t use technology. So that was another paradox that that was coming up. And then the final one is attachment and non attachment. So people were becoming sort of attached to their devices, and that they, they want them with them all the time keeping them in their, you know, sort of breath pocket, keeping them close to them. So needed them for certain tasks, and then would feel sort of anxiety if if the phone or the device wasn’t with them. And but then equally, there were these feelings of non attachment, and very much like, good riddance, my holiday, my laptop can have a holiday and all of this. So that was the final paradox. Yeah, so we identified six from that paper.

Per Axbom
And when you speak about these, these are all related really, to control and chaos paradoxes. It really makes me think about how the elderly actually know about all this stuff, and how you were writing about, we forget that the elderly or older adults, can also teach us about the things that can go wrong, and to not trust technology. Because I love this quote, that you had in the article from Christopher 83. There’s one sure thing, life will come to an end. And technology will always go wrong. And there’s so much wisdom within these people who we tend to ignore and make fun of when in depictions in media, and we use them as examples of people who can’t use technology. But flip that and realise that there’s so much we could learn from them if we actually did involve them in the act of designing and making these products.

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
Yeah. Absolutely. And that’s sort of the other side of the paper as we identify these coping strategies that older adults are using or adopting to overcome the paradoxes. So just to say, like these paradoxes, we all feel them with technology. It’s not just older adults experiencing these paradoxes. They’re all there. But we identified one specifically experienced by older adults, so sort of using that voice, understanding more of their experiences with technology. And yeah, we identified some really interesting coping strategies that were new. And we don’t know if they’re just coping strategies used by older adults or coping strategies that might be used by everyone. But one was that kind of acceptance, as you just mentioned, so that wisdom of yes, people sort of might not have much experience with technology, but they have a lot of life experience and a lot of wisdom. And I think that gives people this perspective. So you mentioned you know, that quote about technology will always go wrong. And so it’s almost like, you can take a step back and sort of see everything. It’s like, yeah, I’ve experienced all this in my life. All this is is just just a technology is just a piece of technology. And that was one of the coping strategies that we identified. But you’re absolutely right. We can use that wisdom, and we can use that knowledge to understand more about how older people use technology. And use help that use that to help us design technology and devices for older people, or that’s more usable for older people.

James Royal-Lawson
I think I mean, maybe one way to look at that as well is that a lot of the designs are, I say a lot, I’m thinking about how being 10 years now with mobile and 20 years over the internet that a lot of the design is based on the previous iteration of the of the technological design to the digital design. Whereas when you think about the young, the older adults and the elderly brackets, that was taking a step back, and we’re looking now at a broader perspective of a time that their life experiences span. If you’re if you’re an older adult now, then you will probably born in the 40s, or, or maybe the 50s, or even earlier than that. So your life experience spans much larger period of time. So how, how that then can be used? You said wisdom, but it’s its input into designing that maybe is neglected when you’re in the world of iteration within digital that is within the 10 years that we’ve had now of mobile 20 years of internet?

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s definitely like an untapped. I don’t want to just come from it from the marketing perspective and saying, you know, it’s an untapped market. It’s more from sort of the concerned marketer perspective, and kind of saying, yes, we need to design products for older people. But we also need to make sure that, you know, it’s for the, for the good, for the well being of sort of older people and people using that technology. So yeah, I think there’s, there’s so much information there, when it just older people need to be included within within the design process. And not just by smaller companies, designing sort of assistive technology for older people, but from the tech giants, you know, from people who are designing this everyday technology that we use, there’s everyday technology that we are now reliant on, and more reliant on thanks to COVID as well. It needs to be usable, we need that voice within there when when things are designed, definitely.

Per Axbom
I’m thinking now about the governments and institutions, especially maybe during COVID, forcing us to be more dependent on all these technologies, but not not providing us with the help and assistance to get started with it. That’s left sometimes I know in Sweden, a lot of people go to libraries and librarians help out. And that’s the way it’s solved. But…

James Royal-Lawson
if they’re even open Per in your country, because they might be closed and locked down.

Per Axbom
But there’s a responsibility here that isn’t that somebody, somebody is not taking responsibility for pushing people into this technology.

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
Absolutely. And I think that’s, that’s the biggest issue was we were all put into lockdown. And so many things went online, and so many things relied on technology. But we still have this digital divide. So there’s still people who cannot afford WiFi, there’s still people who cannot afford technology. And there’s still people who haven’t had the technical experience, haven’t had the experience of using technology. And so either need to learn it and learn it quickly, which is an extremely daunting thing to do, especially in isolation on your own. And, you know, all those are, there’s people who just end up not using the technology.

And I think what’s quite interesting is that, looking at the statistics, the digital divide has reduced since COVID. Because you get some people who maybe didn’t use technology who were forced into using it, but they had a support network there to help them. So they had friends, they had grandchildren, they had family, or getting them online and making sure you know they were using things like zoom, family zoom or family WhatsApp. But what it’s done is it’s left a group of people even more isolated. So yes, the numbers of the digital divide have reduced, but the people who are divided are more alone and more isolated. So I’ve been doing a risk studying at the moment on older adults, using social media during the pandemic. And what we’re finding is a lot of people who were maybe part of a community. So one example is there was this gentleman’s drinking club on a Tuesday night and they used to go down the pub and have a pint on a Tuesday. And you know, it was great. They sort of had this interaction they had this little grief and that this community, but then when the pandemic hit, they needed to rethink things. So they went to Zoom and set up their drinking club on Zoom. And there were a few members who hadn’t used much technology and hadn’t used Zoom before.

And, you know, they, some, some of the friends from the drinking club helped them get onto zoom and help them use that technology. So they could drink together. But then there was one or two who just didn’t manage to use that technology. And I asked a few of the members, you know, what, what’s happened? What’s happened to those people? And they’ll let I’ve not heard from them in a while, like, sometimes I’ll bring them on the telephone, but I really don’t hear much from them anymore. And that’s so sad, this group of people that used to meet up and have a drink, and now it’s been sort of split into people who can use technology and and people who can’t. And I guess my fear is that when things open up again, I mean, they have a little bit is that it doesn’t go back to normal again. You know, people don’t go back to the pub, and don’t have that sort of interaction, you know, it does sort of ended up turning more into technology base, especially whilst people are trying to be safe.

James Royal-Lawson
I think I mean, that example is, is worrying example because it for me, it shows how, how easy it is to jettison parts of a group that aren’t fitting in anymore. I mean, this was a group of friends who went drinking every Tuesday, yet, they still managed to reach that point where now we’re throwing two over the edge. We’re not I mean, I’m exaggerating a little bit now. But you know, to my point that, yeah, they formed a new group. And they they basically let the others who weren’t part of that new group drift and those friends were willing to, or ended up in a situation where that was possible. When we scale that out to society, then the the you’re right about – it feels like you’re very right about the the people that are excluded now are definitely more excluded. We’re almost abandoning them.

Per Axbom
They’re becoming invisible. As long as I benefit, I’m okay. I don’t have to think about the people who aren’t even using the technology.

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
Yeah. And I should say that that group really did try and get everyone on to zoom. So and then they did make sure that they rang the person who wasn’t on it, but I still think that sort of group interaction is so so important, and that the person who wasn’t involved would miss out on the group interaction, they might be able to speak someone on the phone, but they wouldn’t get sort of, yeah, the group interaction that you would do down a pub, but you’re you’re absolutely right, that’s just a small group of people. But that would be happening sort of everywhere. But then there’s the other side of it in that people, the stories coming out where, oh, you know, I used to ring my daughter in Australia, but I never used to use video call. And I don’t know why. Because now we’ve got COVID, I’ve started using video call and it’s amazing, I can have her face up in the living room, and I can talk to him, we can have lunch. So there are those lovely stories as well coming out of people sort of learning and changing their technology habits during lockdown. But yet, it’s that it’s that small isolate isolated group. And as you say, they almost become invisible, because our society is so dependent on digital technology. It’s everywhere. Like, like, as I said, as I mentioned earlier, you have to use digital technology, well to get the train, to do your banking, you know, even to access health information or to have your sort of video call with your doctor.

James Royal-Lawson
And that’s the thing about ringing ringing relatives in Australia, I think you you will talk about this in the report about how that’s, that’s that behaviour is grounded in a long history of having that behaviour. That person is always rung the people in Australia video calls were just not not something that was possible, not something that was in their mental model of how it how it is to communicate with people in another continent. So So getting them to go over that, that transition to that new world of technology, which isn’t actually that much different perhaps to what they were used to. It’s just, it’s just not the same. It’s not what they recognise.

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
Yeah. And it was almost like so what I’m seeing in this new study I’m doing is this kind of snowball usage. I’m calling it. You know, it’s like, oh, well, my daughter was on WhatsApp, so I went on WhatsApp and then we invited my husband and then we invited you know, the grandkids you know, and it just it’s it kind of snowballs. So it’s like when my daughter started using Zoom so I started using Zoom and it’s kind of a you know, and it snowballs and then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. and people, you know, might just might not have been aware of that technology or that that technology was there, because the sort of the habit was to maybe sort of cool someone because, you know, that’s, that’s what we’re used to doing. But interestingly, actually there when a doing these most recent interviews, a lot of people said that they would go back to what they used before. So they were like, yes, we understand the importance of, you know, social media and video calls. But there’s nothing like face to face interaction. And some people like, what’s wrong with a phone call?

Per Axbom
Yeah.

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
So I’m gonna be interested to see what happens now. So do people continue with their COVID habits? Or do people change? I think one or two things will be picked up, like, for example, the video calling in Australia. But I think a lot of things I hope a lot of things will go back to normal. I agree. I think there’s nothing like face to face interaction.

Per Axbom
Snowball usage. I like that. Thank you so much, Carolyn. I feel there’s hope, as long as we don’t forget to bring people with us as we progress.

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
Yeah, absolutely.

James Royal-Lawson
Thank you, Carolyn, for joining us.

Carolyn Wilson-Nash
Thank you.

[Music]

James Royal-Lawson
Oh, even though, during that chat with Carolyn, we’ve surfaced a lot of issues and challenges we’ve tech and with tech and older adults. There’s a whole lot of areas, I think, where I can get a bit excited about the opportunities,

Per Axbom
Yeah, I agree

James Royal-Lawson
To make all this stuff better. And to reach more groups of people. I mean, you know, sometimes when we have these kind of chats, and it feels quite depressing at times that we kind of, we bang on about the ethics of it, or like kind of how people are excluded how he’s kind of impacting that group in a bad way, and so on. But, but despite the fact we’ve highlighted a lot of impacts that don’t, maybe not, and it was a few examples and stories a lot during this interview, where you kind of your heart beats a little faster you go Oh, my word. But I do feel excited, actually.

Per Axbom
Yeah. I agree. And also, I think it’s part of it is that we are actually getting older as well. And we are seeing things that we perhaps as 24 year old engineers didn’t see. And I remember, many years ago, when you and I started talking about font sizes. Because we both realised. Well, the font sizes that we used previously, when we designed didn’t actually work for us as we grew older. And so just that insight that wow, what a huge difference. Tiny, tiny things can make what makes what I’ve thought about a lot now, when listening to Carolyn also is how when we joke about the elderly, or people make fun of the elderly and technology and how they’re bad at using it. People don’t actually consider that they themselves will grow older, they will become those people. I think that we’re being extremely naive in thinking that Well, I know technology now. So I will know it in the future, not realising that they will also have to deal with people who are 40 years younger than them building a technology that really don’t care about them anymore.

James Royal-Lawson
And what’s interesting is, this isn’t a new phenomena for…

Per Axbom
exactly!

James Royal-Lawson
it’s always been a problem. I mean, that the kind of, I suppose in some societies and communities, then the the elders, the wisdom of the elder was more respected. And Carolyn brought up the whole thing with respect to the knowledge and wisdom of the of the other ones. But we, we’ve always fought with this problem of different generations and respecting the different generations and making use of that vast pool of, of wisdom of knowledge, life experience and perspective that exists out there. But another thing that really fascinates me about this is all these, well, the layers. The complexity of the layers, I think that Carolyn brought up a few points. So you know, she she said, she just wanted things to be able to you just turn it on, and we can get it to work when you’re helping. It doesn’t have to be older adults, but when you’re helping someone who needs help with technology to be a bit more inclusive, I guess, the you just want it to work. And you know, you you need when you have a new device, you need an account. And often nowadays, to have an account, you need an email. And then you have to send an email or to read email, you need a device, so you end up in a bit of a loop there. Then we also went into her well, okay, if you’ve got a device, then you also need battery. So we’ve just got layer after layer of quite complex hurdles that were thrown in the way of people and that the sequence of things that need to work is huge.

Per Axbom
I do appreciate like you were saying now also that the all these paradoxes, Carolyn was saying as well. They don’t apply to just older adults, they actually apply to everyone. It’s just that they were really evident that this research, but of course, they apply to the whole population, which is really interesting. I loved the way that she really expressed how the things that are positive can also have a negative side, there’s two sides to everything. And I think this we need to acknowledge so much more because everybody’s always talking about the benefits, of the new technology, we always need to also express well, what’s the flip side of that? What will happen?

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah coming out of the whole conflicting emotions side of this. I love the paradoxes and the was a quote there too “Things just happen and you don’t know why”

Per Axbom
Oh, yes, exactly

James Royal-Lawson
In some ways, kind of really does some of the modern life I guess, with with technology, I mean, even me and you think that sometimes?

Yeah, I mean, we joke about it

I’m utterly amazed that anything works at all. You know, that’s one of the kind of how you are damaged during the years of working with this tech, it’s gonna be incredibly flimsy. But but that that paradox of being reliant, been amazed, but at the same time, no idea how sometimes how you got it to work or why it works.

Per Axbom
And I totally laughed when inside, I didn’t do it out loud, obviously, in the interview, but when she said, “What’s wrong with a phone call?” Because my oldest son has moved away from home now. And we try to book all these sessions with him online with video meetings. And often he doesn’t have time and doesn’t want to do it. And there’s always a setup time, and we have to get the TV out and stuff. And of course, that’s nice. What we started doing now, actually is – We ring him, we just call him and see if he responds, and then he picks up and we talk. And it’s like, why, why didn’t we realise that before how easy it is to just call someone, it’s because he’s a younger generation and we think that’s sort of that’s of course what he expects, but just just having a phone call is fantastic.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, now, it’s strange how new normals become normal so quick. I was touched as well, by the story of the gentleman’s drinking group. Where they couldn’t, they couldn’t gather meat on the Tuesday, so they went digital, and how a group of them fell away, fell by the wayside. And they didn’t, they didn’t just ring them either even even that group didn’t think of the of doing continuing in the old way, or do other ways or just kind of doing the simple thing. It doesn’t have to be complicated.

Per Axbom
I grew up call on the phone will probably work better.

But if there’s one ultimate takeaway from all of this is just that perspective, side of things that really having much more understanding and respect for the current knowledge of you know, where someone’s coming from, when they are using your products, I mean it’s everything, you know, not It’s not only their, their age, it’s is their experience, it’s what they used to, I think it’s wonderful that Carolyn brought up the example of think of who, who your user, who the user of your technology is, in the sense of what are they used to in their world. You know, if you’re used to having maybe a traditional telephone, an old school, like telephone with a cable, all the rest of it, the handset that we used to have in you know, decades ago, but that’s how a telephone is for you, in your mental model in your head for that particular person. When I set up Google TV with my Mum, during Christmas, and the onboarding process of that was just so amazingly young person, perhaps with a family or whatever, that it was just mind blowing how unsuitable it was for sitting there with a, you know, an elder adult, and trying to set it up.

And I do think something we actually do have to bring up in another episode and bring someone into interview around is this aspect that Carolyn mentioned, lots of times of how, these security issues, are making everything so hard to use. I think that’s it. She’s actually saying it’s actually getting worse.

James Royal-Lawson
You’re quite right. That’s that’s one of those I think, I think a lot of us battle with that all the time, that kind of balance between UX, usability or business and security. That’s a really hard balance that one.

Per Axbom
So what should people listen to next? I think you found something from was it six years ago?

James Royal-Lawson
It’s almost just over six years ago. But with, what today’s topic is very much about inclusive design, not just about the older adults. So I thought maybe a good idea is to go back and listen to episode 118. So, as you said six years ago, that’s when we talked to Sara Lerén about inclusive design.

Per Axbom
Remember to keep moving

James Royal-Lawson
See you on the other side

[Music]

Per Axbom
So James, I recently released my own fragrance

James Royal-Lawson
Your own fragrance?

Per Axbom
Yeah. But no one in the car seem to like it

James Royal-Lawson
Oh